Highway Don't Care
by marytyesindeed
Summary: One-shot loosely based on the Tim McGraw song "Highway Don't care" Juice/OC Update - Working on a new chapter for Highway Don't Care. Just got back into the country so give me a little time.


Juice watched the dust settle behind her old truck; he knew she was scared. She didn't grow up with this violence. She was a good girl who loved a bad boy; she just didn't realize how bad he actually was. She saw a mechanic with tattoos and a motorcycle that her daddy would never approve of. She was always too smart for him, too talented. She drew the most amazing things; some of the portraits looked so real that he thought the people would turn and talk to him. She was too good to be some biker's old lady, but he was still staring at the empty road ahead and feeling pretty empty himself.

Autumn was riding down an empty expanse of highway with the radio cranked all the way up. Juice always teased her about the fact that her radio was always tuned to a country station.

She blinked away the tears that came to her eyes when she thought about when she first met Juice. Her piece of shit old truck broke down on the way back to charming after graduation. Her dad had been away on business, so she rode in the tow truck back to T-M with the mohawked mechanic and waited. She sat on the asphalt near the garage and looked around. The sun was glinting off the chrome of the motorcycles, and her fingers were itching for her charcoal. She pulled out her sketch pad and turned Tim McGraw up.

As Juice rode back into town, he thought about the first time he met Autumn.

She was a character. She had waist length auburn hair, and a pierced septum, and was scowling at everything when he pulled up in the tow truck. She spared him a smile as he got out of the truck. She was singing along to whatever was playing from her iPod and shimmying her hips a little bit when she thought he was paying attention to the truck.

"Whatcha listening to?" He asked as he came back around the truck. She jumped and put her hand over her heart, apparently she didn't notice him coming back up behind her.

"Oh, uh Cruise? By Florida Georgia Line?" she answered, the blush fading from her cheeks.

"Florida Georgia line? Aren't they country? You don't sound like you're from the South." As soon as he said this, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him an offended look.

"I'm not from the south, I'm from Charming. Last time I checked though, Geography didn't limit your musical choices,"

_Shit, _he thought. _I just offended the pretty girl who has to ride all the way back to T-M with me!_ "Sorry, I was just, you know, surprised. You looked more like a rock 'n roll kinda girl to me." She rolled her eyes at him and pulled herself up into the cab of the tow truck.

Autumn had no idea where she was going to go; she hadn't brought anything with her. She was yelling at herself, and God, and Juice, and whoever else might be listening. She had given Juice an ultimatum: it was either her or SAMCRO. She didn't stay long enough to hear his answer; his silence had been answer enough for her. Her cell phone had died over an hour ago. Juice just kept calling, and she worried that if she picked it up her resolve would waver and she would turn around.

He always knew how to trick the anger right out of her. That first day, he had come up behind her while she was sketching and asked what she was working on, resulting in a big smear across the bike she was sketching. She scowled up at him, and he had this wide-eyed Oh Shit look on his face that instantly softened her anger. She sighed and took his proffered hand. Using her hand to block the sun, she indicated the row of motorcycles.

"Which one's yours?" he gave her a crooked smile.

"How do you know one of them is mine?" he countered, despite the fact that he wasn't wearing a cut she know a Son when she saw one. She cocked her eyebrow at him and gave him a little smirk.

"Honey, I was born and raised in Charming. You think I don't know how to recognize a Son by now?" he raised his hands in mock surrender and gave her that crooked grin again.

Back at T-M, Juice was a zombie. He couldn't concentrate on the car he was fixing; all he could think about was what went wrong. He knew that he should have found a way to make her stay, found a compromise. He had just stood there like a fish out of water; opening and closing his mouth trying to figure out what to say to her.

When Autumn called him in the middle of the afternoon to meet her, he figured that she just wanted to have a midday rendezvous. It wasn't uncommon for Juice to take his lunch break out at Autumn's house by the old highway. When he got there, she was tossing her backpack into the passenger seat of her truck.

"What's wrong, baby? Where're you going?" Juice asked walking up and pulling her into his arms. He could see that she had been crying; her eyes were red and slightly puffy.

"I think I need to get out of Charming, Juice. I can't be here right now." She had said, pulling away from him and wiping her eyes.

"What happened? Where's this coming from?" He asked, starting to panic. She looked so sad, he was scared.

"It's been a long time coming, Juice. I can't keep wondering if you're going to come home at night. If I don't hear from you, I think maybe he was arrested! Every time I go to sleep before you get home, I'm terrified that you're dead!" She sobbed, all the feelings that had been building up inside her for the last few months were spilling out.

"Oh baby, I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me? I'll try to call more. I didn't know." She shook her head.

"No, Juice, that's not good enough. I can't keep living like this. Either we leave together and you give the club up, or I'm gone… without you,"

"Autumn, it's not that easy! I can't just up and leave. I have responsibilities! I-"

She cut him off.

"That's all the answer I need," Then she got into her truck and was gone. The only trace of her was the dust that her truck had kicked up.

Autumn was mostly yelling at God at this point. She had driven all day and cried until she couldn't anymore. She couldn't understand why this was happening to her. Why was she suddenly so scared? Why did it take her so long to leave if that's what she wanted to do? Was this what she wanted to do? When she thought about the crestfallen look on Juice's face in her rearview mirror, her resolve began to waver again, but when she thought about the baby that she learned about this morning she was sure. If there was any chance that this baby wasn't going to have a father, she wanted it to be her choice, not one made in a few years time by a stray bullet. This was the best thing for all of them.


End file.
